Obesity remains a serious health problem and it is no secret that many people want to lose weight. Behavioral economists typically argue that “nudges” help individuals with various decisionmaking flaws to live longer, healthier, and better lives. In an article in the new issue of Regulation, Michael L. Marlow discusses how nudging by government differs from nudging by markets, and explains why market nudging is the more promising avenue for helping citizens to lose weight.

Two long wars, chronic deficits, the financial crisis, the costly drug war, the growth of executive power under Presidents Bush and Obama, and the revelations about NSA abuses, have given rise to a growing libertarian movement in our country – with a greater focus on individual liberty and less government power. David Boaz’s newly released The Libertarian Mind is a comprehensive guide to the history, philosophy, and growth of the libertarian movement, with incisive analyses of today’s most pressing issues and policies.

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Tag: charity care

Buried deep within President Obama’s $3.77 trillion budget is a tiny little proposal to increase Medicaid spending by $360 million. In a budget as large as this one, $360 million is scarcely worth mentioning. It amounts to less than one-hundredth of one percent of total outlays. But this 0.01 percent is worth mentioning, because it proves the president’s health-care law will not work…

With this proposal, President Obama has admitted that:

1. The PPACA is not likely to reduce uncompensated care in 2014…

2. The PPACA won’t reduce the deficit…

3. Hospitals can stop crying poverty…

4. States don’t need to expand Medicaid to protect hospitals.

The Washington Postreports that rescission of the DSH cuts “could make it a bit easier for states not to expand the Medicaid program. If they know the additional dollars are coming in, there’s a bit less worry about turning down the Medicaid expansion funds.” At the same time, the president has undercut expansion supporters by admitting that expanding Medicaid will not reduce uncompensated care.

The president’s budget shows that the brave state legislators who have been fighting the Medicaid expansion in states like Ohio and Florida were right all along — and it makes expansion supporters, like Governors Rick Scott (R., Fla.) and John Kasich (R., Ohio), look rather silly.

This relatively small spending item is a big admission that the president’s health-care law simply won’t work, and it should provide encouragement to state officials who are still resisting the massive increase in deficit spending, government bureaucracy, and health-care costs the PPACA embodies.

The founder of the Knoxville-based charity Remote Area Medical Volunteer Corps says his nonprofit is hamstrung by laws preventing medical volunteers from crossing state lines.

Stan Brock told the Bristol Herald Courier that RAM has provided free medical and dental care to more than half-a-million patients since 1992, but it could serve even more if state laws were changed…

Brock said the group recently went to Joplin, Mo., with a mobile eyeglass lab. But they were not allowed to make free glasses because their volunteer optometrists and opticians were not licensed in the state.

Events in California have had dozens of empty dental chairs as patients were turned away — not for lack of willing volunteers but because state law creates impossible hurdles for out-of-state providers.

“Before Georgia told us to stop, we used to go down to southern Georgia and work with the Lions Club there treating patients,” he said.

Brock said the laws are designed as “turf protection,” but his charity efforts pose no threat to traditional medical providers…

RAM began providing its free services, which it calls “expeditions” in South America. Its first expedition in the U.S. was in Tennessee, which also passed the first law allowing the providers to cross state lines for charity care. Illinois later adopted a similar law, modeled after Tennessee’s.

Brock said those laws have three key components: They allow health providers from out of state to provide charity care, protect them against frivolous lawsuits and are simple enough to allow busy volunteers to come without jumping through hoops.